


not looking for anything but what i used to be

by Shubatra



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Assassin Road Trip, Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, Gen, Past Mind Control, Potential Friendships, Reclamation of Identity, Sibling squabbles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-26
Updated: 2016-07-26
Packaged: 2018-07-26 22:29:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7592689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shubatra/pseuds/Shubatra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A life lost through seven decades of hell isn't so easily found again. It takes work to find a new equilibrium after having your very self shattered repeatedly - but Bucky's willing to try. It's not like he has anything to lose, after all. Problem is, it's usually both easier and harder than he expects it to be. Usually.</p><p>Fortunately Steve's new team seems to be willing to give him a few chances to get it right.</p>
            </blockquote>





	not looking for anything but what i used to be

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't expect to write this, but a friend of mine was having a bad day and so to cheer her up, I offered to throw together a fic for her if she gave me a prompt. She did, and the result is over 4500 words long because I cannot be brief to save my life. Bucky is her favorite, and talking with her has got me interested in exploring more about him and his mind and how exactly he heals and pulls himself back together after everything Hydra's done to him, and this gave me a good opportunity to start down that road.
> 
> Despite the never-shutting-up problem crossing over, this is not my normal style of writing; this one's a lot more free-flowing train-of-thought, which seemed appropriate to me for Bucky seeing how his poor mind has been taken apart and put back together so many times. Let me know if this style experiment panned out, because I'm kind of terrible at telling if my own work is, well, _working_ like I intended it to. I've got a couple more ideas for little bit-fics in this style/series, so this may wind up becoming a series instead of a stand-alone.
> 
> As for how they all got where they are at the beginning... yeah, no clue. Some questions just don't need answers. I hope you enjoy, and thank you for reading!

It's been one of the longest days on record for all of them as the truck finally putters to a stop at a little outcrop of buildings in the middle of nowhere, some time between when normal people with normal lives go to bed and the graveyard shift gets off work. They're low on gas and collectively starving, having been on the road since before the sun rose in the morning, only stopping to refill the tank and for Clint or Nat to run into the service station and pick up some snacks and bottles to tide them over. They're still technically fugitives, after all; they don't want to give anyone the chance to look at their faces clearly in case someone decides to be a “good citizen” and call the cops on them, though they've found in their missions across the world that very few people actually want them in jail. Maybe confined back on the compound or completely retired, but locked up in the Raft? Not so much, at least not for Natasha and Clint. They have a public track record of saving the world, after all, and the average person seems prepared to accept that they're not going to do anything to jeopardize what they've fought to protect. Bucky's still the wild card though, even though he was exonerated months before of the UN bombing; no one really seems to know what to make of him, and his history as a HYDRA weapon is as much public record as the Avengers' missions in the past. Though he could easily overpower one or even both of them, he listens when the other two tell him to stay in the truck as they deal with other people, because they both have training in how to fly under the radar and he's still getting used to interacting with people not outside the team again.

But the programming is out of his head and truthfully he's getting kind of sick of not getting to stretch his social legs outside of a small group – maybe he's different now, but he remembers a lot of what came before HYDRA, remembers that he used to go out and meet people and work and talk and box and date and sometimes park with a girl even though he didn't own a car. Remembers that he used to be _normal_. He hasn't had _normal_ since falling from the train, and though the team and their support group back in Wakanda have grown used to him, used to the way he'll sometimes fall silent, the way his eyes will unfocus when he sees something completely innocuous like a dead leaf on the snow, the way he'll shudder and tremble and just have to be _alone_ for awhile when a memory he doesn't want because of the pain it brings but _does_ want because it's one more piece of him comes creeping back into his brain, they're not entirely willing to trust him in public, with others that haven't slowly been introduced to him. And he gets it, he does, he's an... how did one of the technicians put it?... an _acquired taste_ now, being around him and being able to handle his little fits and silences, and it draws attention to him in public because the modern day is so much louder and closer than even his own native time was, with the internet and smartphones and televisions blaring constantly and he doesn't always know how to react and not being able to react to something the way other people think you should will get you noticed quicker than just about anything. But it's late and he's tired and he's been in the backseat of the truck cab or no more than ten feet from it _all damn day_ and for now he feels like he's entirely _normal_ because all he wants to do is eat about a ton of food and drink half a bottle of whiskey and fall into a bed and sleep until after the sun rises because even with Zola's enhancements he doesn't have limitless energy and for him sitting in more or less one place is sometimes harder than moving. He's willing to take coffee instead of whiskey if he has to, but the other two are non-negotiable.

Clint and Natasha are his normal... he doesn't want to call them “handlers” because that's what he had under HYDRA's control, but it does kind of apply here too, because they're both quick enough to tranq him if he does go haywire, unlikely as they all know that is to happen now, while the other distracts him and they won't hesitate to do so the way Steve might. They're also the most used to disappearing from view and existing in a kind of half-alive no man's land on the fringes of society if something goes wrong, and their skillsets mesh with his so well that any assignment they take on is usually done within forty-eight hours of them getting the briefing as well as drawing the least amount of attention to themselves. Scott's good for getting in and out of places but the suit isn't exactly discreet and a man disappearing into nothing is an attention-getter, to say nothing of a man growing to the size of a tree, Sam's a good fighter but his effectiveness is reduced without his wings which are highly noticeable, Wanda can keep her head down with the best of them but her powers are _anything_ but subtle, and Steve's good at stealth but has a habit of running and punching at the first sign of real trouble and not being able to extract himself from a situation gone south. Clint and Nat and Bucky, they all know how to hang back, take the long view, when to run, and their weapons aren't anything out of the ordinary even if they're the most sophisticated versions that money _can't_ buy, so them getting in and out and gone isn't a problem, ever. And if it is? They make it not one. 

But this mission started unusual and got even weirder, and now three days after landing the Quin in northern Florida they're on the western side of Oregon somewhere north of Portland, and they've been in this truck two damned days as they chased leads on tech HYDRA stole over the years and a few last straggling members of the mostly-dead organization and even if they're all used to doing things like this, none of them _like_ it. None of them are really that fond of Wakanda either, how rainy it can be and how hot and humid it always is, but there they have so much more freedom to walk and move and access to _amazing_ showers, an entire complex dedicated to them and the run of pretty much anywhere they can go with T'Challa's blessings. They'd rather be there, with friends and family and allies, than in a tiny box of a truck that shouldn't be carrying three adults cross-country with the AC on the fritz. Bucky's sick of it, and even though the other two haven't said anything he knows by the set of their shoulders, the way they're slumped in their seats, and especially the way they aren't talking even to each other that they are, too.

“Are we there yet?”

Clint's driving now, and he sees the archer's knuckles tighten on the wheel reflexively at his words, the way he forces them to unclench but doesn't say anything. Natasha twitches a hair in her own seat but other than that gives no hints that she even heard the question. 

Screw that.

“Are we there yet?” he repeats, and this time Clint's shoulders hunch before he relaxes and gives a noncommittal grunt in his throat. Nat's shoulders quiver just a bit.

And Bucky's tired and hungry and he knows he's likely pissing one or both of them off but he doesn't _care_ right then because he can take out both of them if he needs to but he also knows they're not going to crash the truck just to get to him and so he leans forward, elbow resting on the back of the driver's seat, and repeats once more, “Are – we – there – yet?”

“Christ, you sound like my daughter,” Clint mutters, and leaning up like that Bucky can finally see Natasha's face; she's biting her lip and there's a definite spark in her eyes that wasn't there the last time he'd seen them in the rear view mirror, amusement most likely at her best friend's expense. He meets her gaze and she smiles for real at him out of the side of her mouth, and he can just _see_ when she starts planning what to do in the way her eyes shift to Clint, the lazy roll she gives her neck, and then she opens her mouth.

“You know Lila's much, much worse than him.”

“Because you encourage her to be,” Clint shoots back without a moment's hesitation.

Nat's smirk only grows wider. “Wouldn't be a good aunt if I didn't, now would I?”

“We could do with a little _less_ of that kind of 'being a good aunt' then.”

“Are we _there_ yet?” Bucky breaks in, because even though the teasing banter between them is an improvement over the exhausted silence they were all sitting in before, he still doesn't have an answer to his initial question.

And maybe he wants to push Clint's buttons, too.

“ _Damnit_ , don't start that Barnes, you're a hundred years old not six-”

“Come on, Clint, you need to just-”

“Oh _shit_ no Nat, don't you even think about si-”

“ _Let it goooo, let it goooo, don't hold it back any moooooore..._ ”

Bucky's been around enough to know that tune, even in Wakanda, and it's not his favorite but it's all right, kind of pretty he guesses. Clint's reaction to it, though, is pretty damn fascinating, because the older man _groans_ so loudly that Bucky's halfway convinced he's been shot, his head falling back to hit the headrest on the seat and a look of utter defeat on his face. He faces forward quick enough since he's driving but as Natasha keeps singing his face crumples bit by bit until Bucky's not sure whether he's going to cry or strangle his partner. And when she starts _repeating_ the song after she finishes it, Clint cracks and yells. 

“ _All right!_ All right, we'll stop, christ, we'll stop at the next turn off! Damnit just _stop singing!_ ”

Nat does, closing her mouth with a smug smirk, then turns in her seat to face Bucky looking entirely self-satisfied. “You just have to know how to make him listen.”

“I hate you,” Clint grumps entirely unbelievably from the driver's seat.

They pull off at the second exit since it advertises food as well as gas and a motel that's not one of the major chains Bucky's familiar with and Clint and Nat agree that as long as they're stopping, they're going to _stop_ and Seattle can wait. The motel's visible down the road about a mile away but the gas station is connected to a diner, one of those twenty-four hour kinds that truckers use more than anyone else, and when he falls ungracefully out of the truck after them neither of them complain. They troop to the door, stretching their aching muscles that have been cramped for about six hours now, and the waitress meets them with sleep in her eyes, a smell of cigarettes in her hair, and menus in her hands. The place isn't seedy, but it's older, kind of run down and in need of repair, lighting that's too low and a slight hum in the air from either the AC system or the lights themselves, and they fall into the booth she offers them and request a whole pot of coffee and mugs. Nat tiredly but politely gives her notice that one pot won't be enough, a fair enough warning considering how Clint's blood is practically made of caffeine and hot bean juice, and the waitress (Sherry, he sees on her name tag, her name is Sherry, he can handle this interacting like a normal human thing) promises to put another one on for them. Bucky pulls his ballcap lower on his head, shielding his eyes from notice and wishing he could use it to block out the damn buzzing that won't go away from the lights or the AC or whatever, and looks at the menu spread in front of him. There's music playing from a radio somewhere not all that close by, probably something from the 60s if what he's been forced to listen to since coming back out of the ice is any indication, and as he lets himself stretch and fill up the booth he realizes it's actually kind of all right to be here at dead-o-clock at night with two people who are as comfortable with him as almost anyone and don't seem to give him a second thought. It feels... normal. Like this is what things could have been if he hadn't gone under, or if he'd been born later, maybe around the time Natasha was. Tired and aching and a really long drive across country that they hadn't been anticipating or not, right at that moment, everything is okay. 

“You're not taking any of my food this time,” Clint says to Nat, browsing his own menu.

“I'll take anything I want.”

“I'll order chitlins.” 

“This isn't Alabama, they don't offer those here.”

Bucky glances up, slightly confused. “What are... chitlins?”

Clint opens his mouth to answer just as Nat elbows him in the side, making him grunt and glare at her. “You don't want to know,” the former Russian tells him, eyes scanning what's on offer. “I don't really feel like something heavy before we sleep, I'll just do a salad.”

“You'll do a salad so I won't want to steal any of _your_ food,” Clint states with certainty, because he knows Natasha almost better than he knows himself, snapping his menu shut. “Burger. Fries. And you're getting your own damn fries, Nat.”

“But they taste so much better when they're yours.” She meets her partner's glare with a smile so innocent absolutely no one would believe it before looking at Bucky. “What about you?”

The menu is a lot larger than he expected for a place so unpopulated, but maybe it's a lot busier during the day. He has so much choice he almost _can't_ choose, used to eating what he's been given or the dishes that are normal in Wakanda, which are certainly good but aren't things your basic American is going to know about. When any of the team are in America they tend to rely on fast food since it's _fast_ and gives less interaction with random people, so he doesn't really feel like following Clint's example and ordering another burger. Instead, his eyes scan down the breakfast selection, a little stamp above the list reading “24/7!” drawing his eye, and after several seconds of silence he also flips the menu shut and waits for the waitress to return. “I'll try the pancakes.”

“Let me know if they're any good, we can drop by here again before we head out in the morning if we don't die from food poisoning.” It's obvious Clint doesn't think that's really going to happen, but the archer doesn't have a lot of brain-to-mouth filter around people he knows anyway and being tired only removes it further. Sherry-the-waitress returns with a tray with three mugs and a half-empty coffee pot which she places on a trivet, and Nat hits Clint's shoulder as he reaches to pick up the pot rather than the mug. Sherry ignores the exchange, too used to similar ones or too tired to care, and takes their orders before wandering back to the kitchen. Her customer service skills leave something to be desired, but none of them give a shit and if she can tell, it's not bothering them or her. 

Bucky remains silent as the other two talk, discussing Clint's wife and children and the next project he's outlining in his brain – they've found doing that is actually a really good way to distract people from realizing who they're talking to since no one expects an Avenger to be married with children, hiding the truth behind another truth no one realizes _is_ the truth. They also all wear layered clothes to hide physiques that are significantly more toned than most people's, not to mention the new vibranium arm T'Challa had gifted Bucky when he'd emerged from cryosleep, so there's really nothing about them to draw any notice save the way Bucky never removes his gloves - they're just a brother and sister giving each other a hard time with their quiet friend along for the ride. For the moment he props his head on one hand, eyes halfway closed as he lets their affectionate bickering wash over him, and he decides that as annoying as this trip to the States has been, right now he's pretty glad he came. 

A plate thumping on the table in front of him rouses him from his introspection, and Sherry's delivering Clint's burger as well before heading back to fetch the rest of their food and some more coffee. When she gets back, Clint's fending Nat off of his fries with one arm as he holds his plate out to the side opposite her with the other, and Bucky can't be sure whether she rolls her eyes or smiles at their antics. They tease and bicker and get much, much worse when they haven't slept properly in awhile and need to let off some steam, and Natasha would say that although she has buckets of dignity to spare it's not like Clint has any himself so he has nothing to lose. Sherry slides Nat's salad onto the table, leaves the new coffee pot, and places a small pot of syrup and a dish of butter next to Bucky's stack of pancakes before heading back to the kitchen. Clint reluctantly forks over a small handful of fries to Nat before he can put his plate down again and they all get started eating, and for several moments none of them talk as they all apply themselves to their food. It's unexpectedly good, hot and fresh and tasty and he hasn't had pancakes in months, at least not pancakes like these. They make something kind of similar in Wakanda and of course the Avengers that could cook have sometimes attempted them, but the ingredients are different over there and so they never quite come out the same way, different kinds of flour and different grinds of sugar and the syrup they have isn't maple because it's a bitch to import in and would give their position away if anyone noticed such a North American staple suddenly going to an African nation that had only come out of isolation a couple of years before. The flavor throws him back unexpectedly, back to New York and the war and the little tenement he and Steve had lived in, a couple blocks down from a diner they'd gone to whenever they could scrounge together a few coins to pay for coffee and maybe some food. It wasn't exactly a home-away-from-home but it had been familiar, comfortable, welcoming. They'd gone there before he'd signed up for the army, before he'd been shipped off to Basic. The food hadn't been fancy and it hadn't been a ritzy place like those available across the river, but it was what they'd had and they'd enjoyed it.

“Wow, hungry much?” Nat asks, her voice entirely rhetorical, and he looks up from his fugue of thought and memory to see her and Clint watching him, about halfway through their own meals – while he's managed to demolish everything on the plate in front of him, which is no small feat since there were five good-sized pancakes on it. And it's not like neither of them have ever seen him eat before, they all share living accommodations after all, not to mention Steve eats even more than he does, but he guesses maybe they've never seen him get so lost in it as he had just now.

He shrugs, a little embarrassed at letting his thoughts wander so far so quickly, setting down his knife and fork on the plate and pushing it to the end of the table. “Guess so. I need more to keep me going, you know that.” It's true, they all know it is, know that like Steve Bucky needs more fuel for the fire inside him. Whatever Zola did to him isn't _exactly_ what Erskine did to Steve, but it's close enough for general comparison and the two of them eat more than the rest of the team combined some days. Scott and Clint can still eat like college fratboys and T'Challa has enhancements of his own, but none of them come close to the super soldiers of the group. Both former agents accept what he says without question, at least none they want to voice, going back to their own meals. Bucky watches Nat stab another fry off Clint's plate with her fork, words pressing against his lips and pushing to get out, because what he said was true but it wasn't the _whole_ truth. And however long he spends around the rest of the team, he still holds himself back a little from most of them, because they're good people and he hasn't been good for so long, hasn't even been a _person_ for most of that time, and he almost feels like he's tainting them by being near them. His head knows that's stupid, knows that they don't blame him for what he was forced to do, but he still blames himself and his heart still thinks they hold back from him even though he knows how many open invitations they've left him to come be a true part of the group. He's even taken up a few of them, but he didn't really know how to act, which meant things got awkward, which meant he left early and everyone went on being friendly and social without him. It's a cycle, one he's trying to break with Steve's help and Sam's well-meant annoyances, but it's proving harder than anyone but him expected it to because he alone knows how many land mines are still rigged to detonate in his mind. 

But these two, maybe they can understand. He knows what happened to both of them, they've never been shy about hiding it, and aside from Steve and maybe Sam he's spent the most time with them over missions and meals and whatnot, and none of the team really act _afraid_ of him but if anyone should be it's these two, without powers or tech that gives powers and protection and only their inborn skills and training to save them. Up close, he could devastate both of them, leave them bloody, broken wrecks in only a few seconds; far away, maybe he couldn't quite match Clint's textbook precision, but he could top Natasha in pinpoint accuracy and the few bare millimeters off absolute center his bullet would be would still kill a person just as dead. Had done so, multiple times. Not that he wants to remember them.

“There was a place,” he begins, the words escaping as he beats back a string of memories threatening to overwhelm him, and he didn't mean to speak but speaking blocks the flashes across his vision as he turns his attention to a different time and place than what was trying to ambush him. The assassins across from him look up, curiosity in their eyes but not– not fear, not even a little bit, and it surprises him but he also thinks he knows why. Everything they've been through, everything they've seen... it's prepared them more than anyone for what he's become, what he's trying to unmake himself. They'd thrown themselves into hell and back, doing the horrible things the world didn't like but needed to be done so others could have the peaceful lives they dreamed of. He'd done something similar, back in the war, and he pushes forward because maybe this really will _help_ so much more than he thinks it will. “This place back in– back home.” He remembers just in time that they're not in private, nor the complex T'Challa provided for them in Wakanda, and so he has to be discreet. “This old diner. It was broken down, one of the walls was caving in, all the chairs and benches were old wooden ones and half of them looked like they'd break if you kicked them with your toe. Everything there was terrible, you know? Coffee was overbrewed and stale, didn't have good equipment, they could barely pay their employees.” A laugh bubbles out of him, unexpected and short but also kind of a miracle, and he thinks that if he was still a praying sort of guy after all that happened to him, he might send one up to the Father in heaven that it won't be the last. It feels good to laugh, even over something stupid like this, for just a short time, and of course he doesn't miss the way Clint and Natasha's eyes meet in surprise at the sound from him. “It was so terrible. Best damn place ever.”

The spies' gazes meet again as he drains his coffee from the mug in one long gulp and there's a moment of silence as they figure out what they can say to that, say to yet another man out of time for much less benevolent reasons than the first one, and finally Nat reaches forward to pick up the coffee pot and pour him another cup. “What about this place? How's it compare?”

He considers for a minute as both of them watch him, glancing around at the faded print of the wallpaper, the bowed, scuffed, and understuffed booths around the walls, the old tablecloths covered in slabs of clear plastic to make clean up easier, and the fingers of his right hand clench spasmodically as he answers. “Not up to the level... but still pretty good.”

They watch him for a few moments as he fiddles with his coffee mug, a small smile on his lips, and then Clint's giving a little shrug as he takes another bite of his burger. “Get some more pancakes when the waitress comes back, then. We can wait.” 

It's a risk, he knows, they shouldn't be in one place for too long, give people more chances than necessary to see their faces, especially his. His very much still internationally wanted face, even if it's not wanted for bombing the UN. But right at that moment, sitting in a building that halfway desperately needs a renovation with a cup of too-bitter coffee in front of him and just needing a good night's sleep, he feels more normal than he has in most days since he pulled a man in a ridiculous costume from a river. 

“Maybe I will,” he responds, and he reaches across the table to snag one of Clint's last fries. The marksman glares at him just like he glared at his partner, and Nat flashes him a conspiratorial smile that he returns briefly. 

Middle of the night's the best time for a pancake feast anyway.


End file.
